Tuesday, February 5, 2008

SPEAKING OF AUNT GERTIE

Chapter 5
SPEAKING OF AUNT GERTIE


Aunt Gertie was this wonderful Aunt to die for in a way. To say that she provided many laughs is like saying the sun is rising. One among many stories of Aunt Gertie came from my former sister-in-law who is still my good friend. It illustrates what makes her so special. Her account went something like this, “I went with your mom, Aunt Gertie and a few other family members to a fishing cabin on a river down near the beach--can't remember exactly where! It was a screened in cabin—no bathroom or running water, cots for beds. It was so HOT. Aunt Gertie cut her dress off to above her knees and used the scrap as a fabric "crotch" She pinned it up.back and front. I had never seen anyone do such a thing but it seemed to work. She had to go to the "woods" to find a spot to use as an outhouse. She unhooked the "crotch" panel and squatted. Something bit her on the fanny, scared her to death. She came screaming back through the woods with the crotch panel flying in the breeze, jumped a ditch, said a snake bit her. It really didn't, just a stick that had scratched her. We were all just howling with laughter! This is what made her special as no one laughed harder than Gertie at herself.

Her presence would fill a house, not only because of her girth but with laugher and merry making constantly. She, like all my Mom’s sisters, were great cooks. Aunt Gertie’s claim to fame were her biscuits. They were fantastic and like her, large.

Long before the term came into being, she lived life large. Her church activities were also somewhat legend. The thing that set her apart and it was said that she was many a preacher’s designated attender. She could begin shouting in a flash. The thing that set Penacostal Churches apart was what they termed "shouting." The offical term is glossolia, but for outsiders it was extreme emotionalism. I was always amazed that it seemed to begin and end on cue. Aunt Gertie could be singing, listening to the sermon, praying or staring out the window and without warning, she would break into shouting and convulsing, speaking in this language that might possibly sound gibberish to others and yet seemed to have this order to it. She could be slain in the spirit which encompassed all of the above: shouting, speaking in tongues, raising her arms and flailing and eventually falling onto the floor. This could happen in a moment’s time without warning and end just as abruptly. She was something because of her size. There is no proper way to describe what might seem a minor earthquake; several women, most topping 300 pounds, jumping and shouting with the the agility of a ballet dancer. I was always aghast.

As a young boy at Grandpa’s Church, the first time it happened, I was scared out of my wits but soon it became a time of wondering what was going to trigger it. Hard to say, sometimes a great hymn, then a fervent prayer, a powerful sermon, or nothing; the spirit seemed to reside on Aunt Gertie constantly. What also was equally amazing is the fact that this was never discussed or talked about—why did this happened? What triggers it?—give us some insight. Nobody was ever asking those questions. I was constantly blown away.

I can’t remember much about Aunt Gertie’s family and will have to leave that to someone else. She was a presence in our lives that was pervasive. She would ask me how I was doing and in the next breath, launch into a litany of concerns of the world. And, then quickly without missing a breath, come right back to me and my slackness in school.

Her unusual grasp of world events was also impressive; no doubt in her mind that the Russians putting up Sputnik changed the course of the world. After all, she said, “it was predicted in the Bible.” She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Russians or at least one of them, was the Price of Darkness and possibly somehow related to the mark of the beast But, she was entirely sure that most probably Hitler was the Prince of Darkness. He's not Russian, "well, there could be more than one" she would say.

She didn’t believe in reincarnated but thought that maybe she or one of her sisters might have been Joan of Arc in another life. If it wasn't Joan, it was probably some other royalty. She said it like she believed it. And, more likely than not, she would leave us boys with our mouths hanging open. Aunt Gertie had this unusual knack of zeroing in on some subject we were studying in school or knew about to make her point.

Her craziest idea was that she said we needed a woman to run the country, given the fact that men couldn’t keep their minds off carnal things. We didn’t know what she meant. She didn’t trust the government, however, and thought that we were still suffering from the Civil war, which should never have been fought anyway she said. George, in particular, gave us commentary once she departed that was meant to debunk her views.

Aunt Gertie didn’t like her name and kept trying to get everybody to call her Gertrude, thought it had a regal sound. But, since nobody ever did, she preferred, Auntie. She secretly admired Eleanor Roosevelt but thought that she should have stayed home more but would always allow as how if she’d stayed home, she could not have accomplished as much.

Her hero was FDR and thought that our town should erect a statue in his honor or better still, dedicate a train car to him and never let it leave the station and people could go in and visit all the time.

Aunt Gertie was without a doubt, a renaissance woman, born way too early. One area that stood out above all else was her attitude about race relations. She thought it absolutely awful that we were still segregated this long after the civil war. When someone tried to call it the War Between the States, which most Southerners did, she corrected them on the spot. You better believe that Lonny never showed up when Aunt Gertie was around. Her retort was that it was a useless war fought to keep the status quo and nothing in life ever remained the same. I would listen to her with an intent that bordered on a trance. Most of the time she was talking about such issues when nobody was listening. Often when she began, people would walk away but she didn’t miss a beat. Sometimes she would look at me and say, “Boy, you get that?”

Nobody seems to to remember one thing for which only one brother claims is true. It was in fact, her most outrageous act and for which she was most proud. It occurred in Irwin, the little town where she lived for a time. Long before civil rights became a popular cause, she took her best friend, a black woman, about her age (which we don't know) to the sandwich shop and sat with her at the counter. As the story goes, someone called the one policeman of the town but when he found out it was Gertie refused to come. I never did find out all the repercussions of it but my Mom told her that she was crazy and that she was making all of us the laughing stock of the community. If Aunt Gertie minded, it never showed. As I remember, our Dad was her biggest ally, always laughing and saying that if it wasn’t for Gertrude, this place would be boring beyond all tolerance. “We ought to erect a statue to Gertie” he was fond of saying.

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